Let There Be Light

The sunset. They’re all the same now. Simple holographic images that are projected onto the sky by the large projector that’s located in the capital. My granddad told me that when he was a kid, the sunsets were real nice, that each one was different, and that was what made them beautiful. I asked what the heat of the sun felt like, and he said that during the summer, it would sometimes be so hot, you could fry an egg on the hood of a car. “eggs?”, I asked. “yeah, remember, I made you one last time you were at the farm.”, he said. I remembered that, it was when I was about ten years old. Granddad could have gotten into big trouble if the government found out he gave me that egg. Those eggs are only for the rich people, the Barons, that live in the big houses. The government pays my granddad to raise chickens and get eggs for the barons. He also has to make sure his chickens are nice and fat for the Barons to eat. Once, my granddad hid an egg and put it in an incubator. We waited for the chicken to get fat, and we had chicken for thanksgiving instead of the traditional goats head. If word got out to the Government, we would have been in really big trouble. My granddad told me that for thanksgiving, his family would usually have a turkey. A large bird that doesn’t fly and goes “gobble, gobble”, but they became endangered several years ago. My granddad says that’s a lie that the Government created so that only the Barons could have turkey for thanksgiving. I like listening to my granddads stories about the past, before Lexicon became president. He said that before Lexicon, Commoners like us were allowed to have pets, allowed to get credit cards, and they were able to buy their kids candy, potato chips, and soda. Only the Barons get that stuff now. Us commoners have to work for the Barons to make sure that they are happy and don’t leave the country and live somewhere else. A Baron can be anyone that is a Movie Star, Politician, Athlete, Doctor, Lawyer, Writer, Artist, or anybody that is of social and economic value. My father is a Common Electrician, who makes sure that the Barons never run out of power for their light bulbs, their computers, and their televisions. They get more internet access and television channels than we do. My father is trying to invent something new for the Government to use so that we can become Barons and so that my granddad won’t have to work anymore. He also wants to give my mom a break from having kids. She’s had 8 already, including me. Us commoners have to have lots of kids so that our kids can work for the kids that the Barons are having. I asked my father why he wanted to inevent something so he could become a Baron, and he said it was part of his plan. He said he wanted me to be able to go to a real school so I could learn something else other than becoming a Common Aircraft Pilot, a job that the Government assigned me when I was born. I’ve been going to pilot school since I was four. The first time they made me ride a plane, I was scared. It was really old and it made a lot of noise. The new planes are very quiet and invisible, but I won’t get to ride one until I turn 17, and I won’t be able to fly one until I graduate when I become 21. I was thinking about flying a new plane when my granddad said that he had to go home and feed the chickens. He opened the front door when a Government Man wearing a black suit walked in and asked “ is this the residence of Commoner Herbert Lori?” “yes, he’s my father, sir”, I responded, making sure my eyes were on the floor and that I spoke clearly enough so he could hear me. The Government Man took out a paper from his pocket and walked into the kitchen and sat down. I ran into the kitchen to remove his shoes and put the special slippers on his feet. I made him a cup of coffee and I placed it on the table in front of him. I asked if there was anything he wanted. He said no, so I bowed, and went back to the living room. My father walked in the front door and I said “you have a very important visitor in the kitchen”. he walked into the kitchen and the Government Man handed my father the piece of paper. “This is a record of purchases you have made at a local store, tell me sir, what are you planning on doing with all of these things?” “I’m inventing something so that the Government may use it”, my father responded. “if you are inventing something, you have to obtain clearance from your local inventors office to buy the materials, and you sir, do not have the proper clearance”. “ I do sir, I have the paperwork in my office”, my father said, his voice trembling. “show it to me”, the man said. My father went into his office to get the paperwork and showed it to the Man. “very well“, the Man said, “but next time, be sure that you shows these papers to the store clerk.” I ran into the kitchen to remove the special slippers and put his shoes back on and I made sure to tie his laces. He took a sip from his coffee mug and he looked down at me and said, “this coffee is way too bitter,” and poured its hot contents on my head. I made sure not to cry until he left. My mother cleaned my burns and put medicine on them so that I could sleep. I lay in bed that night unable to sleep. I could hear my parents talking in the next room. My mother said something about how unfair that the Man had been, and that he had no right to do what he did. My father said that he knew, but that they could do nothing against him until his invention was finished, then, when they became Barons, they could have him arrested. They talked some more, and after a while they were asleep. I stayed awake all night. The next day, on Saturday, I stayed home while my mother and father bought groceries. I had to watch over my 3 younger siblings. While they were playing hide and seek, I started thinking about my older siblings who have already moved away. My oldest brother Shawn doesn’t live with us anymore, he’s a Limousine Driver. My oldest sister Mary is married to an Automobile Mechanic, and my second oldest brother, James, is a Gardener. My little brother John, who is 8 years old, is going to be a Helicopter Mechanic, and my other little brother Wayne, who is 6 is going to be in the Army. My youngest sister Eva, who’s 8 months, is going to have to get married so she can have children. I thought that it was sad that my older siblings didn’t have choices, but if my fathers invention is successful, my younger siblings won’t have to take the jobs that they were given. I wished I could still keep a diary, but since the Government started making pens that had cameras on the tip, I stopped writing in my diary, and I had to keep all of my thoughts in my head. I used to read books too, like Shakespeare and Plato, but the library was closed down last year. Now the only books I’m allowed to read are instruction manuals and textbooks on aircraft. My granddad said he had some old books in his attic that I could read, but that I had to go to his house and read them. It’s too risky to take them home. A camera might have seen me.
My parents came back, and they had no groceries, but they looked very happy. They had a letter, and they read it to us. A Government Man was going to come to our house with an entire review board to see if my fathers invention was worthy. We all had to be clean and wear our best clothes. They were coming at 7:00. After my shower I put on my best clothes and joined everyone else in the living room, and at exactly seven, we heard a knock on the door. A Government Man and a group of about 9 Scientists stepped in, and my father led them into the basement. After about two hours, they emerged from the basement, and my dad was smiling. One of the Scientist told us that we were to pack our clothing and personal belongings, we were moving to a new house in the Holwood Hills. We were Barons now. I packed my clothes, my toys, and my combs. We were led into a large black car and we drove for what seemed like days. Finally, we arrived at a large house overlooking Holwood. The furniture was new, and every room had a television and computer. The Government Man asked my father if he wanted another person to live with us. My father asked that he bring his father, Commoner Richard Lori, to our new house in Holwood. The Government Man nodded his head, and several hours later, my grandfather arrived with his belongings, among them, some books he had hidden. We all retired to our rooms to get some sleep, and the next day awoke to a large breakfast prepared by our chef and his staff. I asked my father what his invention was, and he said that it was very special. I asked to see it, and he said I would have to wait. I was burning with curiosity, and late that night, snuck into the basement to see my father’s invention. It was in a large black box. I lifted the lid, and I saw a large bright light. I looked in, and saw an orange ball of light in the middle. As I looked closer, I saw a face in the sun. It looked like the face of a bird. I put the lid back on and ran back to my room. I was scared, and tried to think of why the ball had a face in it. I knew better than to ask my father, so I decided to wait until we unveiled the invention the next month. In the meantime, I decided to do some reading, seeing as how I didn’t have to attend school anymore. Our new house had a very large library, the walls were actually large bookshelves that reached all the way up to the ceilings. I expected to find the usual Government approved books, various biographies on Lexicon or Movie Stars, but to my delight, I found books by Shakespeare, Plato, Homer, Trotsky, and various books on different religions. I stayed up all night reading books on Buddhism, Sikhism, and Daoism. The sun projections were beginning to rise, and I climbed up the ladder that was leaning against one of the bookshelves. I found a book on History. It appeared to be a school textbook. I looked at the year. 2003. I read it from cover to cover, and read about the Berlin Wall and it’s destruction. How could that be? It’s still there now. The Tiananmen Square Massacre, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement. I discovered that these were all things that had happened to bring about change. I felt dizzy by the time I got to the last few chapters. I then started to question the book. Is it possible that it could be fiction? It has to be, since Tiananmen Square has no memorial dedicated to the massacre, Martin Luther King was a political dissenter, and all of the Blacks live in Africa. Everyone knows that. They’ve been there ever since the beginning of time. I decided to use my computer and did a search on the internet. I searched for martin Luther King, Tiananmen Square, and all the other topics I read about. I was right, and the book was wrong, I thought. I was about to give up when I found a link on the bottom of the page. I clicked it, and I found the book’s website. It looked very old fashioned, but the information I read was there. It had more links, and I kept researching. A group of people that call themselves the 5 percenters were able to hide their website, and they knew the truth. I kept getting headaches as I read, but I realized, that it wasn’t because I was getting sick of the lies, but that the truth was so hard to handle. I stayed in the library for two whole days, reading and learning. My father came in, and asked what I was doing. I asked him if he knew about Martin Luther King. He said, “yeah, your granddad told me about him, and he had some of his old textbooks from school that he let me read. I was hoping you wouldn’t find out like this, but I guess it’s too late now”. “Dad, does this have anything to do with your invention?”, I asked. “yeah, you’ll see, in a couple of weeks”, he said, and he walked out. I spent the next two weeks talking to my granddad, and we had many conversations about what democracy really was, and other forms of Government. I asked what Government we lived in. Totalitarian, apparently. I told my granddad I wanted to start a diary again, and he said that it would be impossible with the new pens. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, ‘wait here”, and he walked out. Several minutes later he came back with a feather and a small black bottle. He said, “ A long time ago, people used to use quill pens, made of feathers, and wrote with ink. I think this should be safe enough.” That night, he taught me how to use the pen, and it was quite frustrating at first, but eventually I got the hang of it.
The night before the unveiling, the same Government Man and his group of Scientists came to visit, and instead of talking to him in the living room, they went to the basement. I went into the library and turned on the Closed Circuit TV system. I heard them talking, and it sounded as if they were talking in a different language. They spent about 2 hours down there, and I was about to turn off the television when I noticed something strange. When the Government Man went to shake my father’s hand, I noticed a small mark on his wrist. It looked like a 5. I shrugged it off until I noticed that the scientists all had one as well, all on the same spot. My father didn’t have one on his wrist, though. I remember seeing that same mark somewhere else. I turned on my computer and went back to the five percenters website, and found a photo of a member that wore a mask, and he had a big tattoo of a five on his chest. I found other examples of Tattoos. One of the common ones was to have one on the wrist. How could the Government Man and the Scientists be five percenters when they worked for Lexicon? It was all very confusing. I slept that night very uneasily.
It was a clear day when the unveiling happened. We were sitting on chairs on the steps of the Sitting Man Memorial, and Lexicon was standing next to my father in front of a large table that contained the black box. My father gave a long speech, and after some time, just as the sunset projections started, Lexicon lifted the cover of the box and the ball rose up and floated in the air. My father added some liquid from a large glass bottle into it, and it grew bigger and started to rise up into the sky, all the while getting bigger and bigger. After about 10 minutes the ball grew so big it touched the plastic dome that held up the projection screens. It started to burn a hole in the plastic and rose from the hole into the dark blackness of Space. My father said in a loud voice, “Behold, I have created a Sun!”. The people cheered in excitement and Army soldiers started to take down the large projection screens. It only took them two days. All over the world, there were News Broadcasters transmitting storied about the Sun, and Reporters would come to our house to interview my father. Everything was hectic for about 4 weeks, and after the last reporter left, we had a party at our house. My mother invited some of the neighbors. Most of them were Movie Stars. I went to the library to watch the Government Channel, where the Legislature usually has meetings that are broadcast. At the bottom of the screen, it displayed the number of viewers who were watching across the nation. 1. That was me. Lexicon was giving a speech to the Delegates, when all of a sudden, the room became very bright. A single ray of light was filling the room. I looked out of the window, and noticed that a ray of Sun was quite long and looked like if it was touching down on earth. I heard someone screaming, and looked back to the television. The ray of Sun was burning Lexicon. The delegates just watched in horror. After about two minutes, Lexicon was reduced to ashes. The ray soon turned it’s attention on the Delegates, and burned them too. After everyone was charred and burned, the light filled the whole room until it was very bright, and it was all over. I watched intently to see if anything might happen. There was what seemed to be a large red ball in the middle of the room that was not there before. It started to tremble and crack, and I saw a beak poking through. After struggling for quite some time, a large bird covered in red feathers emerged. It flapped its wings and shook off its feathers, revealing different patterns of new feathers in gold, green, and blue. It flew up to the podium where Lexicon would deliver his speeches, and he began to speak. The number of viewers went from 1 to 200, and from 200 to 10000, and kept growing with every passing minute. He gave a long speech, which I still remember to this day. It went:
“My fellow countrymen, there is an old book, called the Bible, that preaches the word of God. When he said, let there be light, he not only referred to the sun, but to the light that lives within all of us, the light that inspires us to be individuals, to do good, and to serve our fellow man. Brothers, we have lived too long under a ferocious tyrant to remember God and his word, but now that there is a new Sun, there shall be light again. There shall be freedom again, and we can all live together freely. Whether you Barons may like it or not, it does not matter to me, for we have lived too long without light, the light which makes us care for each other. No longer shall we live with these barriers which once kept us separated, no longer shall we have to live with the single title of Commoner or Baron. We are all people, and nothing will change that. I bid you farewell, brethren, and from now on, let there be light.”
The channel then turned to static, and immediately afterwards, the News Broadcasts started to air stories about the mysterious bird, and gave him a name. Phoenix. All over the country, people were quitting their jobs, enrolling their children in school, and running for Democratic Office in their town halls. The next day Phoenix gave a speech about his plans for the future, which included the reinstatement of free speech, democracy, and truth in education. Each day became more and more hectic, but things were changing. Women could pursue careers, they could vote again, and children could be anything they wanted to be. I sit here now, on my front porch, watching the sunset. I notice that this one is different than yesterday’s, and that is what makes it beautiful.